Supervillains
by miraculous-nights
Summary: Marinette was kidnapped when she was 6 and kept in a a cage next to her, a boy helped her through what was happening to them. Tikki and Plagg renamed them to be Ladybug and Chat Noir, but they still don't know who their companion really is. Suddenly, they are let loose into the world with no explanation.
1. Chapter 1

"You are Ladybug, child. This is Chat Noir. You will do great things together. Now pass the time, and we will come when we are ready," the mysterious lady that Marinette woke up to walked away and into the darkness surrounding the place.

She looked to the boy supposedly named Chat Noir. It was a weird name for a boy the same age as her. He looked up through long, tangled bangs and she moved closer to see his face. The single light bulb didn't have enough light to make his face clear, but she realized there was black, black paint covering the top half of his face. She touched her own face where she assumed his paint started.

"You're painted too. Red and black spots. I assume that's why she called you Ladybug. I'm Chat, just Chat to anyone but _them_. That was Tikki, the female leader. Her husband, Plagg, is the other owner-" he flinched before changing his wording- "Leader. They are leaders and not owners, understand that now. Your name before doesn't matter anymore. Chloé, Manon, whoever you were is not you anymore. It's best to lock it up and bury it."

Marinette, Ladybug, went to reply but closed her mouth instead. She shook the bars keeping her from leaving the small circle of light slowly swinging above her.

Ladybug became friends with Chat over time, and when he started flirting with her, it took her all the strength to resist returning the replies. It was nine years that they spent in solitude together, only being let out by the two people that put them there first. Ladybug and Chat were let out every so often to bathe and be repainted. Occasionally, their captors gave them new clothes when they grew out of a pair or wore them to ruins.

As the pair grew in their small cages, Chat became hunched over more and more. Ladybug learned how to curl in a position so that her entire body would still fit on the ground. The two of them slowly watched the other lose the fat clinging onto their body, wondering what it was like for themselves.

Everyday, Ladybug silently reminded herself who she was. _My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I was six years old when Tikki and Plagg kidnapped me. My parents are named Tom and Sabine. My mom is from China._ She would repeat it time after time while laying down. Chat would never know, but she would always remember.

"My lady, why do you curl up on the floor like that? You always mouth something, the same thing. This light won't let me figure it out, but I doubt it's cat puns," he grinned at her, breaking her out of the trance.

"Huh? Sorry, Chat. I just, think about everything and put into my mind. I unlock it sometimes so I can remember if we can get out." Ladybug was around fifteen years old, she was six when they kidnapped her. Tikki and Plagg, the man who took care of Chat's needs, only announced the year each time they asked. She tried to keep dates, but nobody visited them day to day and the light never changed anyway. The single bulb went out multiple times, but it was hard for both of them to keep count, because they were given medicine that fogged up short term memories. Ladybug and Chat Noir couldn't tell you what they did yesterday, even if they didn't only stay locked up.

One day, sometime when the two assumed they were about fourteen, Tikki and Plagg both came in. She had never seen them together, but when they walked in it looked like they were never able to part. Plagg's arm was slung over Tikki's shoulders, and Tikki hung onto his hip with her own. Tikki was dark-skinned, with black hair and a taste for bright red clothes and lipstick. Plagg was a very light shade of sun-kissed. His tan hair was styled with flair and didn't match his black suit and blacker ties. Where Plagg was styled, Tikki let loose, where Tikki was punctual, Plagg was casual. Complete opposites couldn't attract as much as they did.

"Hey, bug-cat, sit up and listen." Ladybug slowly raised her head, looking through overgrown and tangled bangs. "We are upping the dosage on your meds, and if you don't like it, consult with your mind. I know we've been a bit 'lax about the actual taking of meds, but now if you don't-" Plagg cut off with a smirk.

"I will personally cut you up like a fillet until you do," Tikki smiled as she leaned ever closer to Plagg. Ladybug wanted to throw up, she could barely remember anything but endless days of the light above her, Chat's puns, and the constant cramps of being curled up.

"Okay," Chat murmured as she contemplated, "We'll do it, but just, can't we see the sun once?"

"No," Plagg and Tikki said at the same time, making Chat flinch. Ladybug simply sat let her head sink back down, broken. How could she remember who she was, if all they did was up the meds that made her forget what she kept repeating?

"Bug, what do you say? Will you take your meds like a good bug?" Ladybug grunted what they assumed was a yes.

Time passed in the cages, about a year from the approximations of Ladybug and Chat, before they saw the couple at the same time again. They walked in in usual attire, still attached at the hip. Ladybug stopped raising her head to visitors about six months ago, and Chat stopped three months ago. They both sat up when they noticed more than one person had entered.

"Bug-cat, let's go," Plagg clapped his hands twice as Ladybug started to close her eyes. "Up and away. We are gonna tell you a couple things then you can vamoosh. Run away and look at the sun 'til you're blind."

Chat looked hopeful as Ladybug still worked on processing this information. Tikki and Plagg each opened one cage and let the two teens crawl out. They stood slowly, being careful and supporting the other's small weight with their own small weight. They walked out of the circle of light that made up nine years of light, and into the adjacent hallway that they had only taken to go to the bathe and repaint area they had visited. They went past that room and into a small room with a desk and four chairs, two on each side.

Tikki and Plagg each had a swivel chair, one in black and one red and black polka dots. The seat Tikki indicated for Ladybug to use matched her own, and Chat's seat was black with a green pawprint. Ladybug sat down and looked at her bare feet, the cool concrete was a wonderful feeling because it was _something_. She had sat in that cage for so long, even before the added more meds, without feeling. Only breathing, repeating the mantra of who she was, and surviving on the bare minimum.

"So you are each going to be let out of the same van, both across town. One of our drivers will escort you to the destination. Then you can open the door and be free," Tikki explained quickly as Plagg wrote down things.

"What's the catch?"

"What was that, bug? A catch? We will call you when you're needed."

"You kept us here, for nine years. To let. Us. Go? You're kidding me," Chat said as he began to simmer.

"You don't know our names. Only what we look like to you, and you have no memory of where this is. I think we'll be fine," Tikki smiled as she stood.

They followed Tikki and Plagg to a young woman with brilliant orange hair who took them to a moderate sized car. "I'm Trixx. Get in the car, don't talk, and get out when I tell you to."

Ladybug didn't hear another voice until they stopped at a park. Trixx yelled for Ladybug to get out and that Chat Noir would have a while longer before she could never see him for a long time.

Ladybug slid open the door and blinked, the sun was shining on her face for the first time in nine years. A track of tears ran down her cheeks, and she could feel her nose becoming runny.

"Shut the door, and go away," Trixx said from inside the car. She slid the door shut and the van took off. Families with their children looked at her standing there, when she realized what park she was at. This was the park across from her family's bakery. It had just started to become popular when she went to the park alone like most days, only this time she didn't come home.

Ladybug blinked once, twice, then walked once around the perimeter of the park. Then she walked around the park once more. Then she decided she was ready to face her parents. She walked to the nearest sidewalk then walked around the park until she was across the street from her home. Where she was Marinette.

Crossing the street, Ladybug held her feelings tight. She wasn't going to come in crying, that would only confuse them. She opened the door, and a bell rang above her. She saw her mom, Sabine, facing away from her and picking up leftover pastries.

"I'm sorry, we are closing early today. You can come back tomorrow if you want-" Sabine cut off as she saw the girl with hair so much like hers and broken blue eyes that used to light up so much.

"Mom?"

"Mari? Marinette?" Her mom's sob broke out. Marinette slowly walked towards her and hugged her mother jerkily.

"My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I was six years old when I was kidnapped. My parents are named Tom and Sabine. My mom is from China, and my dad is French. They work in a bakery," she breathed in and let go sharply when she realized her mother didn't smell the same. She didn't smell like chocolate filled croissants anymore, but something tinged with metal, someone full of grief.

Tom Dupain walked down the stairs to help Sabine with the final cleanup of the day, but froze when he saw her hugging a girl who looked too painfully familiar to have comprehensible thoughts. At first, he didn't believe it could be his baby girl. It had been much too long, and cases that never got solved had to be closed off after so many months.

"Dad?" Marinette whispered as her mom loosened her grip. "Dad!" She ran to him and held fast. They had a special bond and she realized he still smelled like the flour and dough they used for most pastries. For her, it meant he still had his wide, callused hand that kneaded dough early mornings and late into the night. It meant he hadn't changed from her nine years of locked away memories.

"What day is it?"

"It's the twentieth of May, 2016."

"Mom, what day was it when I disappeared?"

"The twenty-first of May, 2007."

"That's… under nine years. To the day, tomorrow it will have been exactly nine years." Marinette thought about why it was today. It wasn't a coincidence, but Chat had been there for a while longer than she was there.

Tom walked out from his bedroom and finished hanging up with somebody on the phone. "Yes, okay. I think so. Of course, bye. Thank you. That's was the police office. There will be some officers here soon, that's okay, right Mari?" He questioned her, but she was ready.

"Of course it is. I'm happy to tell them all that I can fully remember. They put us on some kind of medication to stop our short term memories, I think. It all blurs and I," Marinette took a full breath in and a shaky breath out.

"Can I see my room?"

Tom pulled down the ladder that accessed her room and moved aside. Marinette climbed up into the room that she remembered. Everything was still there, except her toys from back then were cleaned up and tucked away. Everything had a fine layer of dust, showing that her parents couldn't bear to get rid of anything or look at it either. She wondered if any visitors knew what this space was for after she disappeared.

She noticed something on her bed, multiple newspapers stacked up, each with a different amount of dust between each layer. At the bottom, was two days after she was kidnapped, announcing she had gone missing on the front page of the newspaper. There was a short article on who she was, her defining features, where and when she had gone missing, and who to report it too. Ladybug remembered this, not Marinette. The Ladybug side of her remembered when Tikki came in laughing and read this exact article about her. She cried then, but she wouldn't cry now.

Chat never had an article read to him about him. He said his parents probably didn't care enough about him to notice he went missing. Instead Plagg made up a fake article about how dumb he was of a child to go three blocks away from his home all by himself and ridiculed him on how they wouldn't be having this conversation if he hadn't been that stupid in the first place.

Marinette thumbed through all the articles, each one getting closer and closer to the current year, but the last article was from four years ago, on the fifth year anniversary of her going missing. She tucked the papers somewhere her mother wouldn't throw them away and went back downstairs.

Her thick socks muffled her steps, and when she got downstairs she found her mother making hot chocolate over the stove for her when the doorbell rang. She knew it was the officers coming in by the quiet murmurs of conversation police use. Sabine poured the warm drink into a mug and put it into her hands.

The two officers followed her dad through the door, and they looked her up and down.

"Don't look at me like that, please sit down and I'll testify or whatever you want."


	2. Chapter 2

"My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and I was kidnapped at the park across my street when I was six years old. My mother had confirmed the date that I was taken was tomorrow, nine years ago. A lady that called herself Tikki and her husband, Plagg, were the ones who I perceived to be the leaders of the place. There was another person with me. I never learned his name, but we were about the same age. They gave us fake names, and we were kept in padlocked cages," Marinette took a breath from her rapidly speeding words.

"For the past nine years, we have been let out to be taught like we were in school, be bathed, and have our faces repainted so we couldn't see each other. There was a single light bulb that hung above us, and it would sway so little that you only noticed it in the days that weren't packed full of the meds."

"The meds? What kind of meds, Marinette," asked Officer Leroy when she paused.

"Meds that make you forget what happened yesterday but not what happened the day you woke up in a cage."

Sabine put a glass of water into her daughter's hand and told her to drink and breathe. Tom moved a little closer to his baby girl. Marinette tried not to stiffen, but failed when she thought of how the last person that she had gotten as close to as she could was Chat Noir. Her Chat Noir that flirted with her when she needed it most and also knew when to tone it down and let their fingers reach between the bars and their foreheads simply rest against them. She wondered if there was any paint left on her face.

"They upped the meds last year sometime, they would only tell us the year. Also, there was a different lady that dropped me off at the park today, Trixx. She didn't like us and neither did Plagg. Tikki could barely stand us. That's it, I think. That's all I can remember for now."

"Marinette, it's okay. It's very traumatic to be kidnapped and kept in a cage for that long of a time, especially as such a small child," Officer Raincomprix summed it up in one sentence.

"I am not weak, and I know it," Marinette looked into her hands. "I want to go to my grade level in school and make friends. I want to be normal and have hobbies that don't include delving into my past, but I won't forget my past either."

She smiled at her parents and the officers in the living room. "Can we clean my room and get things I want to change and replace before the whole media learns that I'm home?"

Sabine rolled the cart, trailing behind her enthusiastic daughter. She was in the aisle labeled "CRAFTS" and darting to craft after craft. She decided to get some basic sewing supplies and some sketchbooks with pencils. Sabine helped her choose a couple of outfits and lazy clothes for her dresser and finally let Marinette grab the white pillow from the front area of the store with a black kitty stitched onto it.

Marinette beamed at being out in the open, and Sabine smiled at the fact this was her child, the one that was there when she was six. In one of the grocery aisles, she bumped into Madame Césaire and her daughter, Alya, pushing the cart.

"Marlena, it's good to see you. How's Alya? I can see her back there," Sabine wiggled a finger at the girl slouched over the bar and tapping away at her phone.

"Mom, what is she using?" Marinette peeked out from behind her own mother at the cellphone in her hands.

"It's a cellphone. They were just starting to become popular when…" Marinette sighed when her mom wouldn't talk about what happened.

"Oh my goodness gracious, is that your daughter? Sabine, didn't she go missing nine years ago? You didn't tell me and I don't think it was in the paper," Marlena was astounded as she began to stare at Marinette.

"Please don't stare," murmured Marinette as her mom explained when she showed up earlier.

Marlena and Sabine started moving in opposite directions and Marinette trailed behind. Her daughter looked familiar, but she didn't know why. Maybe they played together when they were kids, because she had obviously not been kidnapped.

As she got in the car, Marinette realized that she had looked like the girl that Plagg called Fox. She looked so similar, but it was probably another child that was wronged by Tikki and Plagg. Fox came to the classroom sometimes to learn their basic schoolwork. She had mentioned coming there for tutoring, but Marinette doubted it was the same girl.

Marinette studied the outside world as they drove home and missed Sabine's question.

"Huh?"

"I said, Mari, how did you like the store?"

"It was a store, I guess. It's not like I'm six and don't know what a store is. I was just happy to have something to do," Marinette wanted to sigh, she didn't want these awkward conversation starters with her own mom.

"You can address what happened to me, Mom. I lived through it and it won't break me if you have questions. I didn't have the luxury of growing up and I certainly can't go back to being innocent about this now." Sabine sighed, and she prepared herself for whatever questions her mom had.

"I just don't want to push you, honey. I know you were a hardy child, but you're so thin and I think you might break if a strong breeze came our way. I don't want you to only think about this for the rest of your life, and I want you to become happy," Sabine spoke quickly, afraid her daughter didn't want to think about being easily broken.

"Mom. That's what you're worried about? I lived everyday in there, thinking about who were and who I was. I remembered what I was like and focused on that much more than what happened. Now I can just focus on the future," Marinette smiled while she thought about what she could do next. Having nothing to do was the hardest part about being Ladybug.

They sat over dinner, Marinette prodding at her small plate of braised chicken and mix of vegetables. After so little food, it would take time for her to be able to eat more than what she had now. Ladybug never had more than two meals a day, and those were mostly very bland and hard.

"What are your plans for schooling, what level are you at?"

"I'm in my current grade level, Dad. I'll be fine to go to school after this weekend. School gets out in July, so I still have over a month and a half to find some friends."

Sabine smiled down into her plate as Marinette tried her chicken. She quickly started to cut it up and slowly eat it. Tom's plate was almost gone by this point. Silence was tense, and Marinette pronounced herself done soon after.

"You've barely touched your food," exclaimed Tom. "You don't like it?"

"It's great, really! I just don't have that much of an appetite yet. I'll try eating more tomorrow. Can I go continue cleaning my room?"

They ushered her away and Mari climbed the ladder and got the vacuum plugged in. The _whirr_ comforted her and she knew it wouldn't stop. Methodically, she rolled it over the floor in straight lines, sucking up the dust. After the floor was finished, she used the nozzle to clean up her bed and chaise that was brand new when she turned six. The bed had no sheets, and when she finished her vacuuming she went downstairs to find some.

She did not find sheets. She found her mother crying and her father teary eyed on the couch. She slipped back upstairs before they noticed her, and she continued her dust-filled adventure. The dust rags and fluffs were filled to the brim, and she had possibly finished as much as she could.

She opened the trapdoor to go downstairs louder this time to make sure her parents had enough time to collect themselves if needed. They sat on the couch, watching the news. It was her. Marinette's face was on the screen, Marinette from when she was six.

"I don't think I should help in the bakery tomorrow," Marinette said as she started looking for sheets. Tom shook his head as they moved on to show the front of the bakery and a reporter in front of that live.

"Not much has happened in the household since her return. The bakery had closed early today in order to remember her, and she appeared shortly after. The police have revealed very little, but we will keep you updated on the case. Back to you at the station, this has been Nadja Chamack reporting for TVi," the reporter's face vanished and the anchors were back to address the next news story.

"She has a daughter, Mari. Maybe to get a swing on things you could babysit for her. Manon is a cute child and she also loves the park-" Sabine drew in a breath, watching Marinette closely for any signs.

"Yeah, I could take her to the park some days. It wouldn't be a bad way to get outside before getting into a routine. I bet she's wonderful."

Manon was not wonderful. Marinette had met Manon only twenty minutes ago and already knew what a disaster she had gotten herself into. Manon like to ask about everything, and Manon also liked to run away as fast as she could and see if Marinette could catch her.

"Manon, come back," Marinette called as she ran straight into a boy with blonde hair. "Chat? No, I'm so sorry please excuse me!"

The handsome blonde boy stared at the girl chasing down the wild child. "Ladybug?"

"What was that Adrien? Listen, sweetie, you need to listen to us because this is your first photo shoot. I still don't know how your dad let you get so skinny. Now, can you stand, no sit, on the fountain ledge here? Thank you, now look at the camera," the photographer stood behind the camera as Adrien shuffled into position.

"Manon, do you know what's happening over there? It looks a like a big deal."

"Some kind of photoshoot for a famous boy. Nobody but his family has seen him for ten years! Mommy told me this morning over breakfast," Manon sounded proud that she could help Marinette, despite the fact she kept running away from her.

"Oh, that's very interesting. What did you have for breakfast?" Marinette continued to chat with Manon but didn't take her eyes off the "famous boy" and he seemed to look back at her quite a lot as well.

Ten years was a bit too coincidental to Marinette, but she put it off and continued watching the boy as people gathered around the area to see the photo shoot. She spotted Alya, the girl from the store yesterday and walked over.

"Excuse me, Alya was it? Do you know what's all happening? Sorry if I'm bugging you or something," Marinette burst out at Alya.

"What is happening, girl, is that the famed Adrien Agreste is having his first photoshoot for over ten years. His mom made his father stop before he was kidnapped or something and then his father shut him inside the house for ten years in vengeance. Then, his mom disappeared or something about a year ago, and finally after mourning his wife, Gabriel Agreste decided to let his professional clothing line be premiered on his own son! Isn't that great? I found it all out through multiple magazines and rumors around the fashion community," Alya explained as they walked away from the loudest part of the group.

"It is an impressive feat. If only they had you on the crew looking for me, you probably could have found me in a month," Marinette smiled at her joke, and Alya burst out laughing. "The perks of having a roommate who loves puns."

"Roommate? I never heard this on the news, would you consider telling me more?"

"Maybe some other time, if that's okay with you. I have a babysitting job to finish and a kid to bring home to her parents." They parted ways and Marinette took Manon home soon after.

"Hello, Madame Chamack. I saw you on the news last night, didn't I?"

"Good afternoon, Marinette. And yes, you did see me standing in front of your bakery. I volunteered for the job so Manon could come watch what I do at a live scene."

"I have to get going soon, but enjoy your evening. You can call my mom if you want Manon to go to the park again," Marinette waved as she walked away from the house and went back over to the park. She set a pace to go around the park multiple times and set a course in her mind. It wasn't the same way she walked yesterday, but was still similar.

She walked and thought about what was going to happen when or if Tikki and Plagg popped up again. She figured it would happen soon, but she wasn't sure how they would do it. The last time she was alone, it was to pick up Manon. The time before that, when people were staring at her before her parents knew she was alive.

Stopping and sitting down on a bench, Marinette closed her eyes and let herself become Ladybug again. Ladybug knew that Tikki and Plagg's appearance was a when, never an if. Marinette let herself hope. Ladybug wondered what would happen, and Marinette thought that she could just tell her parents and they would protect her. Ladybug and Marinette might share the same soul, but they would never have equal agendas.

She was so lost in thought that when she finally opened her eyes she could see only half of the sun over the buildings of Paris. Standing, she took a breath and became fully Marinette yet again. It was Saturday, and dinner would be soon. She walked home quickly, making her lose a bit of breath over the pace and her weak body.

Rushing up the stairs, she wondered what time it was and decided to get a watch. She found the door unlocked and walked in slowly.

"I'm home," Marinette said to a delicious smell and a worried Sabine.

"Marinette! Where were you? I called Nadja and she said you dropped off Manon over an hour ago!"

"I'm sorry, I went back to walk around the park and then I got lost in thoughts. I was thinking about the future," Marinette was telling the truth, but not the full picture behind it.

"Sabine, I told you to calm down. She would have been fine for long as needed," Tom chimed from the couch, curled up in a fuzzy blanket. The news wasn't on tonight, but some popular show called _The Returned_ was on. Tom patted the cushion next to him, and Marinette plopped down.

"This is one of my favorite shows. It's about all these local people who died years ago show back up and things just seem to go wrong," he explained while she processed. Marinette still took a while to get things through her mind after so many pills were put into Ladybug's shared space.

Marinette knew why he watched it. It was most simply because he thought his daughter was dead when it started and before she actually returned. It was heartbreaking to her, that her father got through his pain with a show that mirrored his real life.


	3. Chapter 3

Monday morning came and Marinette began to panic. She had spent all of Sunday inside gathering her worries. What if the other students hated her? What if they bombarded her with every question she couldn't answer? What if the _teachers_ hated her? She was going deeper and deeper into her insecurities and as she began to breathe faster and faster.

She felt a mug pushed into her hands, and blinked to see her mom standing there. Sabine knew what was happening and helped her like she had for both days she had been home. Marinette smiled at her and Sabine went back to cutting some ingredients up for something.

"You should leave soon, Mari. School starts in thirty minutes, and you know how to get there, right?"

"Yes, mom. I know how to walk down the street. I'll go grab my stuff then I'll go," Marinette went back up to her room and grabbed the backpack her mom bought and put on the watch she asked for the day before.

Downstairs, she hugged her father before swiping a danish for the road. There was a crowd that had gathered around the building, for both pastries and to see her. She knew it was mostly for her, there were almost three bakeries on one block average.

"Bye, Dad. I'll drop by right after school and maybe I'll go to the park for a shorter time before dinner's ready." Marinette received a joyful look at having her come home, and a scold from stealing the danish.

She walked out of the shop with purpose, shoving her way through the group of cameras, questions, and onlookers. Once she was free of the main mass, it was easier to get across the street and finally more or less disappear into morning rushed people who had a destination like her.

In ten minutes, she was in the school's office, checking in with a secretary for her schedule. Monsieur Damocles came out of his personal office before she left, and he had her come into the office.

"I hear you're back for good, right?" Marinette nodded as he continued, "Good. Hate to lose you so quickly again," he chuckled at his excuse of a joke before clearing his throat. "So, you're in Mademoiselle Bustier's class. It starts soon, but you shouldn't be the only new student to that class it seems. You can afford to be a little late today. The famed Adrien Agreste is taking a step down from his prissy life up in his mansion to join Paris public schools."

"Okay, Monsieur. May I have my schedule now? I would hate to inconvenience you," Marinette was nearly silenced when she heard the boy's name from Saturday.

"Yes, yes. Of course. My secretary must have it by now, and I have to leave school for a meeting with Monsieur Agreste this morning. If the secretary doesn't have it, just wait until it gets here. Good morning, Marinette," Monsieur Damocles led her out of the office and then left the office lobby to leave for the meeting. The secretary didn't have the schedule yet, so Marinette sat down to wait for it.

The bell rung five minutes before Marinette was given her schedule, and another five minutes passed before she could figure out where the class was. She took a deep breath and put Chat out of her mind before knocking on the door and coming in at the teacher's call.

"Hi, I'm Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I came here after being returned home for the first time since I was six years old," she announced before the class. Mademoiselle Bustier had instructed her to sit next to Alya, and she ended up right behind Adrien. His blond head nodded slowly back and forth in concentration she realized after a few minutes behind him.

"Adrikins, so glad you and could catch up yesterday. It's a shame the entire media is focused on that _bakery girl_ instead of your return to fame- fashion. I meant your return to the fashion world," a skinny blond girl giggled at Adrien from across the aisle, and Marinette looked at her curiously.

"Chloé, now's not the time. It's my first day of class and I want to learn," Adrien whispered furiously. Her name was Chloé. She seemed a bit more than rude, with her head angled upwards even though her and Adrien were almost the at the same level.

"Quiet, we are in a lecture," Mademoiselle Bustier called up from the space in front of their desks, "This is a place of learning and I intend for all of you to do so, particularly people who sit in the front and I have a direct view of."

She looked pointedly at Adrien, but her eyes passed over the Chloé girl. She must be caught doing things like that a lot. Tikki never let them talk during class, so Marinette fell back onto her Ladybug education habits. She listened very well, but also was able to let her mind drift while listening.

"Marinette! I dare say you are not paying attention. Even if it's your first day, you will need to catch up. Please recite the last sentence to the best of your abilities," Mademoiselle Bustier was very loud, but it might be because the back of the classroom is very far away.

"Yes, Mademoiselle. You said, 'One of the most famous books in French history was _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ , by Victor Hugo. We will be studying this novel for almost the rest of the year,'" Marinette recited and tilted her head side to side while thinking.

"Oh, okay then. Now let's continue with our Advanced Research Lesson on the author. Victor Hugo also wrote the famed _Les Miserables_ which is believed to be more famous. You will study it next year, and we focus on this book first because of the French landmark. We will be taking a field trip at the end of the book to visit the site and other remarkable landmarks featured in the novel," Mademoiselle Bustier continued to drone while Marinette drifted yet again.

She knew that her drifting wouldn't be minded again after the first time. By the time she was finished with her thoughts, Alya was staring at her.

"What? Is there something on my face?" Marinette wiped around her mouth and Alya chuckled.

"Yes Mademoiselle. You said _blah blah blah._ How did you remember all of that in the two seconds she talked about it. While not paying attention," Alya said as they packed up bags for lunch.

"It's quite easy. The people who schooled me while I was kidnapped had me recite things for days. I wasn't even allowed the readings outside of the classroom," Marinette remembered the time the girl that was tutored there didn't remember something. Plagg was teaching them that day and he made her stand in the front of the room and not move until she remembered it or it was time for her to go home. She stood in place for three hours before her mother had arrived to pick her up.

Alya chattered about what would happen for the rest of the school day and the rest of the school year. Marinette found Alya riveting in how she could talk and talk all day long. Marinette didn't think she could do it.

They found somewhere to sit and the boy who sat in front of Alya sat down across from her.

"Hey, Alya. Since we both have a new friend by us, I thought we could all sit together," the boy fiddled with the headphones around his neck.

"Get lost, Lahiffe. Only the friend can sit by us. You don't have enough class," Alya teased as he sat down anyway.

The blond boy who was sitting in front of her was the Adrien Agreste boy. She was still curious about him. How he returned this weekend instead of any other weekend. Not only that, but they came to the same school for the first time today and are in the same possible friend group.

"Adrien, was it? Where have you been these past ten years? I assume you know where I've been," Marinette asked innocently. LIke she wasn't guilty of pinning something most likely untrue about him on him.

"My mom requested I was kept inside and not ever let out of the house so people couldn't take advantage of my youth, father including. My mom disappeared about a year ago, or something, and Father's over his mourning now. So, I guess my extended vacation is over," Adrien sounded regretful about it all, but also punctuated. Chat was not punctuated in the least.

"Do you want to go to the park if you get some free time? I don't imagine you have that much, but I-I'd love someone who's been shut away even longer than I have and share experiences," Marinette mentally gasped. She had stuttered in front of this cute boy. She talked to Chat so often, and she supposed he was cute enough for her to not do this.

Alya had openly gasped and was taken by surprise by the unintentional date. Not the stuttering, she hardly knew Marinette. Alya knew no girl who would go so fearlessly into a date after meeting a person so soon.

"Yeah, I would totally do that. I could outmaneuver my bodyguard that picks me up. I don't think I have anything tonight if that's okay," Adrien said before Marinette could look at Alya. Alya gasped yet again.

"Nino, we couldn't even get a bet on the time limit yet!" Alya was staring at the two new friends.

"What? You're right! Way to ruin our streak. We bet on every possible relationship to form in our class, and we haven't missed one yet. You beat us to it," Nino was taken aback.

"I'm sorry we didn't know about your gambling problems?" Marinette sounded confused, but Adrien was confused. He didn't get this kind of sarcasm from his father.

"Marinette you shouldn't be sorry. They are just joking around, I'm sure," Adrien smiled brightly at her from across the table. There was a moment of silence before the other three burst into laughter. It only made him more confused.

"I am also joking. Nothing is ever so literal unless you take that way," Marinette was quoting Chat Noir, and Adrien blinked and looked away. They practiced jokes on Adrien until they went walking and eventually went back to the classroom.

The rest of the day was easy and a bit boring. Most of the information had been already taught to Marinette, and she could fly through the course work.

By the time school was over, Marinette had almost forgot about going to the park with someone other than Ladybug nestled into her brain. She was walking past Adrien when he reminded her.

"S-sorry. I forgot for a m-moment. I'll have to check in with my parents first, i-if that's okay," she said and he nodded.

"That's okay. If my father just got me back after nine years, I would also be having that problem. Now, I can't be alone enough to him. I just wish I could get a healthy balance of friends and home life," he sighed.

"It's okay. T-this is my family's bakery. D-do you want anything?"

"I'll be okay. Father keeps me on a strict diet." Marinette eyed him. He was practically as skinny as Chat was before they were let go. She couldn't believe a parent would make their child stay that small.

She ran in and waved at her dad, then snatched two of the closest pastries she could find- two chocolate-filled croissants. She gave one to Adrien and he looked surprised.

"My favorite! I told you that you didn't have to."

"My treat. Anyway, it's almost closing time and they were leftover."

"This park is weird, isn't it?" Adrien looked at the big fountain that the park was centered around and the different areas where people gathered.

"I guess. It was the park that the people k-kidnapped me in. It's also where they returned me. I w-was wondering about that. You were gone for ten years, and I was gone for nine. If nobody ever saw you and they gave up their hopes on me, who's to say that you weren't anywhere else?"

Adrien's eyes widened as he looked alarmed. "Sorry for cutting this short but I see my bodyguard over there."

"What? Where?" Adrien pointed out a pale man. She looked around the park and saw Tikki walking past the children's area. "Oh! I really need to go too. I'll s-see you tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow Marinette," Adrien was distant as he walked off in the direction of the man.

She looked for Tikki once more and couldn't find her. She started to walk by a bench, and a hand pushed her shoulder down until she sat down.

"Insolent child. You came here everyday as a child. It makes you the easiest target for us creepers. But even worse, you still come here every day you can. For an hour or ten minutes, we will always be able to find you," Tikki sat down next to her.

"What do you want with me?" Marinette snapped at her, because Ladybug would never offer herself for a beating.

"I simply want to inform you that some changes might occur. Those meds were never for your memory loss. Simply a side effect, if you did have them. Now, after effects, that's something to worry about. Soon, like probably today or tomorrow, you will require much more food than what you eat now. It will be sudden, it happened to me. Next, you will become lean and pure muscle. Your body is preparing itself for what's to come."

"What did these pills even do?"

"It's easy once you understand how to do it. Each pills attempts to find if there's any magic remaining in your family line." Marinette gawked and was not allowed to talk, "But once you take a pill, it is incredibly hard to have children, much to the dismay of Plagg and I. It takes a long time of pills to react to every inch of magic in your bloodline. Chat and you have received the most-potent amount. Some power evolves with age, but we've pretty much juiced it out of you. We are simply using you two as our masters used us. You will do so one day to your apprentices. Marinette, I hope you understand that we will require you two to help us.

"There is a great force of evil that we have been fighting for generations. Before the magical lines faded out of memory and when we didn't have to resort to these methods. The current masters must choose and apprentice to take their role in this war. I chose you and Plagg chose Chat Noir. You will be Marinette to me, but Chat and all of your allies will only know you as Ladybug. When you retire, your identity will become Tikki and Chat will become Plagg. When you retire or I die, I will lose my fake name and once again take on the name I was given at birth."

"Tikki, I have one main question. If I have to fight, don't I need to learn? Also since you're married don't you have to know Plagg's real name?"

"Why of course I know my husband's name! What kind of woman do you think I am? Chat and Ladybug have a history of revealing their identities no matter what, but it gets so annoying. My Tikki said the same thing. So, anyway we covered all the things I was supposed to tell you. We chose you for a reason. It wasn't a random choice to take you from your family. You and Chat have the right personalities and the right age group. Trixx, Nooroo, Duusu, Queen Bee, Plagg, and I are all the people who fight in the war. Unfortunately, Duusu and Nooroo have both turned against us. So, eventually after everyone gains their powers, we will have a wonderful team to defeat them and pass the power to the next generation to be with us," Tikki paused and looked at Marinette.

"So is the war primarily against those two? Or is it another enemy that is greater than them?"

"She calls herself the Supreme Kwami. Each person who grows into their powers is a kwami. Yes, you are a kwami. You both did magic the week before we gave you back to your families. So, eat. Listen to your bodily functions and needs for food and whatever else it tells you, except hormones. I don't want to deal with those and don't try it. I have to go, so I'll be in touch."

Marinette watched Tikki walk away with a brisk pace, her heels clicking. Processing the last of the information, she stood and went home. She hoped Adrien found his way home safely.

"Good evening, Mari. I didn't see you drop by the shop this afternoon." Marinette was welcomed with this statement.

"Yeah, I made a friend and I didn't want to keep him waiting. I waved to Dad, did you see me?"

"Yes, Marinette. I didn't get a chance to ask you about anything, but I'll survive. Sabine, I told you not to worry. If anyone did anything, it's not like we'd give up."

"Thank you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm guessing we have about thirty minutes until dinner? I have some homework to work on for a little bit," she made her way up into the pink room.

There was a pile of boxes on the chaise. She spied a computer box, and box with some designs around it, and on the top of the pile, a box for a cell phone. She moved them aside and sat down to think for a minute. Ladybug fell into the empty spaces of the room and she had a conversation with her buried side.

 _What does Tikki even mean? I mean, honestly, I can't even see you or me working for the sadistic woman._

 _That's true, but if they awakened hidden magical powers… That will be a real issue if neither of us can control them. If only Tikki was actually nice._

 _But still, why would she bother to explain all of these things now? She hasn't bothered in over nine years. Nine years and one day to be exact._

 _There's always the possibility that Plagg has say over her, but how he changes around her it's doubtful. He becomes more respectful, not her._

Ladybug tucked herself away as Tom bellowed out the word dinner. Marinette hurried down and helped to set the table. It was a quiet night after dinner. She spent the night in her room doing the homework to catch up. She wasn't really in her room, though. She was up on the balcony that had been forgotten about in her last few days. An old wooden table was up there, some cracked plastic tea cups, and a two chairs that went with the table. Also the group of plants that had been so overgrown she only had a narrow stip of concrete to set up shop on her homework.

Writing about Victor Hugo was very dull. She kept finding herself looking up and the dusk around her. The sun was beautiful in how it lit up the Paris skyline. The city always seemed behind the rest of the world. School got out much later than some places, the sun took much longer to set. Paris was simply trying to hold onto the past.

A crunch sounded behind her and she turned quickly. Sabine had started to crawl up and stepped on a tea cup.

"Sorry if I scared you. Dinner was tense and I didn't get anything out about your day. So," Sabine paused as if she wasn't sure what to do, "How was your day?"

"It was fine I guess. Alya sits next to me and we are friends, I think. A boy named Nino sits in front of her and another new kid sits in front of me. We made a mini friend group. It won't be a four group forever, but we can all split up into two groups of needed. The classes were fine," Marinette thought about the days that Chat and Ladybug were left to teach themselves. It happened every so often. It was her very favorite moments with Chat.

Their conversation died soon after, and any attempts to reinvigorate it didn't happen. They couldn't sit in peaceful silence but they couldn't talk either. Marinette thought it was maybe the worse thing to happen to her since coming back.


	4. Chapter 4

School was boring, it turned out. Marinette studied each night and did everything she needed to do, but it flew by quickly. The class didn't have school over the summer, but Tikki and Plagg's tutoring sessions were sporadically every week. No hint of summer except for minimal changes in clothes and tans, or in Plagg's case sunburns. That meant that their school was way ahead of most people's schedule.

Marinette's study sessions each night were partially for studying, but also trying to figure it out. Tikki had visited a week ago, and since then Marinette hadn't figured out to trigger her supposed powers. She tried magic words, thought out intentions, even a failed attempt at making a magical wand. Nothing helped her in the quest for the unimaginable.

Tonight, she sat in the chair on her balcony simply thinking of what would happen if she did have powers. Would she use them as Tikki instructed? She could make her own ways in life and be herself.

The dusk was pretty. It always was, each night for the past week. She had sat in this chair every night to watch the sunset and practice whatever it is she might possibly believe in one day. Tikki was crazy to keep her in that cage for so long. The tutoring that was going on with Fox was a much better idea. The methods they used were unorthodox, and quite frankly ruined any type of trust between them. But Tikki didn't have to be trustworthy to teach her about magic.

She sipped on a protein packed smoothie to soothe the hunger that Tikki warned about. Marinette hated that she was right. If Tikki had gone through the same thing when she was her age, she should have had more sympathy. Grumbling, she continued to stare blankly at Paris.

A whisper of air tickled her neck, and she turned. Tikki sat in the other chair, pouring herself a cup of tea out of the plastic set. She smiled at the nonexistent tea before putting it down and looking at Marinette.

"I know you're struggling with the whole magic thing. Honestly, if you didn't want me to watch the despair, you should have at least tried the wand inside." Tikki laughed, but it was detached.

"You were watching? I was alone!"

"No, you were out in the open, somewhere I shouldn't be right now. Inside, shall we?"

"You are not coming into my house. Not in a million years. My parents will hear and then I'll be in trouble for having someone over, then I'll have to explain that you're my kidnapper who has shown up twice but every time I go to call the police I either don't have my phone or you disappear," Marinette said angrily.

"I never knew a Ladybug who so easily fell into that kind of anger. So can I come in? It's a bit cold up here and I won't give any answers until I'm warm."

Marinette crawled into her room and down from her bed. Sulking, she sat on the chaise. Tikki followed, silently.

"I'll do the talking. Most people don't understand what or who I am. After more or less becoming Tikki, I lose transparency. Not to you or anyone who knew I was Ladybug or friends and family. Others who don't know won't be able to comprehend me by now. I'm a ghost of Ladybug. My Tikki didn't disappear to me. Not until the day I met you. That was the day I became Tikki, and the day I failed to recognize you as what you were.

"You were the only person who noticed me that day. I would walk through Paris with Plagg and wave to the occasional person. Not a single person waved back, to me or Plagg. I was in the park, and you came up and hugged me. I figured it out when I couldn't find my dear Tikki. She was gone because I was Tikki now. That was the day your blood began to ready itself for magic. While mine lost the ability to conjure my favorite charms, you began to find new things in odd places. A new doll among the others. A five year old wouldn't have noticed, but I did because I studied you. I saw the doll appear and your happiness. I began to despise you, taking my power.

"I never came to terms with losing my power, I know you wonder. I watched you for a year, until I accepted you were the next Ladybug and Plagg had become Plagg. We took you both on the same day, but drugged you so you weren't dealt with for another week. Two six year olds were in our workshop, and that never changed. I became colder, and Plagg became more relaxed. We almost divorced, Plagg thought we were too harsh and I thought that it was worse than it could ever be. I never told him how I felt about your treatment. I only became colder and made him more entangled in my web.

"And you. It was the easiest thing I have done in my life, kidnap a child. Each time I let you notice me, you would just hug me if you were alone. You ran into my arms that day and I simply kept you."

Marinette thought she would be taught magic, not the reasons behind the nine years of hatred and malice. It lifted something off of Tikki, and Marinette felt anger.

"You kept us in a cage that Chat couldn't lay down in because you just didn't like that I got something you didn't? That isn't how trust is built. You can teach me magic, but I will never let you be sympathized be me," Marinette said in a low voice, tears being held back by an expert.

"I have to be clear minded to teach you how to use magic. There is very little magic left in me, and I can only use it to instruct you. It was on my mind, now I can begin. A young user like you could be reading a book, kneading dough, and performing a dance while doing the most difficult spell you knew. Now, there is a reason we call you Ladybug while in that place. Only Ladybug can perform magic, and Marinette is a separated person for good reason." Tikki adjusted how she sat.

"Why am I two personalities, if only one can do magic?"

"Because if you stayed only Marinette, the magic would have never listened. It would have eaten you from the soul out. Even your appearing doll trick was sapping away control. You wouldn't like to be sitting in class and stand up to find yourself on the tip of Mount Everest, would you? No, you wouldn't, especially in those shoes," Tikki was exasperated, explaining this was hard enough, but to teach the idiot girl all of the magic?

"Fine, but what do I do first, after Ladybug?"

"Yes, you must make the spell. Not quite out of thin air, but out of thin air. You must wish for it from the bottom of your heart, cheesy but functional, and then speak whatever comes out of your mind. The first spell is always different, but there are some which need different words and equal intentions," Tikki was encouraging her.

Ladybug closed her eyes and thought about what she wanted to do. It took her a moment, but she realized what she wanted to do. Opening her eyes, she focused on the metal dress form. She studied it for another moment, then whispered the first thing she thought of.

"Dress yourself," she whispered. The fabric next to the form lifted before falling back to the floor. Ladybug frowned as Tikki looked unsurprised.

"Mean it, truly. Dress yourself," Tikki commanded at the form. The fabric lifted and wrapped itself around the form. It fell down after she lost concentration. "You see, don't whisper. Tell it, take control. It is your magic and much more powerful than my remains."

Ladybug sighed before continuing, "Dress yourself, form." The fabric lifted a bit higher.

This continued for over half an hour. Each time, the fabric would rise and fall at different heights, to Ladybug's frustration.

"You're doing the magic, but it's not a full spell. Try doing something else. If you get a full spell, I'll leave for tonight and we'll meet somewhere else because of the fact that Ladybug's specialized spells involve a lot of shouting," Tikki said.

"Unfold," Ladybug simply looked at her nicely made bed. The comforter flew back and bunched at the foot of the bed. Falling on the floor, Ladybug was ready to fall asleep.

"Side effect. Practicing your magic will help you build stamina, but every time you use the Lucky Charm you will be drained in a few minutes. It's something you have to adjust to. Also I'll teach you how to not accidentally fall into Ladybug and do unintentional magic in school," Tikki listed off these things as she climbed up to the trapdoor to the balcony. "Goodbye, whichever girl is there. I'll see you tomorrow, at the park?"

Marinette was already asleep on the floor. Tikki climbed back down and laid her comforter over her.

Marinette woke up on her floor the next morning, later than when she normally would. Her mother was the person waking her up, and she felt groggy and her neck ached.

"Marinette, why are you on the floor? Get up! School starts in half an hour," Sabine said. Marinette only caught the last sentence but jumped up from the floor. "You're still in your clothes from yesterday? Hurry!"

She jumped up and grabbed some clothes before taking her hair down to brush it and put it back up into her pigtails she had adopted. Running through her house, she picked up her backpack and grabbed the first food she found in the kitchen. She went back up to her room to grab her history book.

Passing through the bakery, her father shouted words of encouragement at her for being ready so fast. Luck was on her side, with school only a block away it would be so easy to be there on time. Until a clumsy fall landed her on the ground with her random pastry uneaten and crushed under her. Her white shirt was covered in, maybe apricot jam.

Running back to the store, she grabbed a normal croissant and changed her shirt quickly. Running back down the street, she avoided falling and ran through the school doors. The bell tang halfway up the stairs and she burst into the room a minute after the bell.

"I'm sorry," she said and slipped to her seat. Alya gave her an extra paper that had been passed out and pointed to the question they were supposed to skip. Marinette quickly flew through the questions and looked at the one they were supposed to skip. She knew the answer, and wrote it anyway.

Looking around, Alya was only halfway done but Adrien was looking around like her. She wondered whether they went the same pace or he was just bored. She guessed the former, from his homeschooling.

Mademoiselle Bustier came up a few minutes later to review the answers to this warm up. She ignored Marinette's wandering eyes but instructed Adrien to keep his eyes on the board or his paper. Again, she wondered why Adrien could do things as fast as her and let his eyes observe things during teachings. Homeschooling must have been very educational, she decided.

Thinking about homeschooling, Marinette actually forgot to pay attention to the day's teachings for a while. Blinking a few times, she listened to Mademoiselle Bustier much closer. The teacher noticed her abnormal attentiveness to the lesson and made less of a point to make sure she was truly listening today.

School passed much like her days as Ladybug did. Ladybug would wake up and get herself together and slowly mouth her repeated mantra before Chat woke, but then she would let herself loose time to the lightbulb above them before doing whatever Tikki or Plagg wanted, talked with Chat, or blink until she fell back asleep. Marinette simply sat in a desk and let the time pass and listen, moving and doing whatever her friend or schedule directed her to next.

The best part of the day was always a tie between her lunch with Alya or the park each afternoon. Her parents didn't exactly enjoy her obsession about the park she was abducted in, but they allowed her to be there for roughly an hour every day. At least they knew Alya wasn't an obsession.

The lunch that day was very bland, Marinette studying Alya's notes that she missed from her time in thought. Alya chatted with Nino and Adrien shyly read a book next to him. Chloé came singing Adrien's name and insulted the other three at the table. After that, Marinette continued studying her notes that were still very vague after she started listening.

The park, that afternoon, was much more interesting. Tikki was waiting where she normally started her route and was smiling at her. Tikki had almost never smiled, even the night before at the first successful attempt at a spell by Ladybug was met with her normal facial expressions.

"Today's the day! We are going, to maybe a gym a few miles away. We can take the Metro, and if you hold onto my arm or hand. Once nobody who saw you grab onto me initially is out of sight, we will have disappeared completely," Tikki grinned like a madman as they started walking.

"Why are we going to a gym? What are you smiling for? I've probably never seen you smile," Marinette said as she lightly held on to Tikki's arm.

"It's simple. This gym is where we kwamis meet most days. I go there almost every day. At least every other day. So, it's basically a place for me to teach you magic with no limits. You can't do the spells you want to for the first time without shouting them. Also it's where we keep the items for both starting your pathway to being a kwami and also how to contain your powers," Tikki was rapidly naming these things off, and Marinette was finding it hard to keep up. "Also, Plagg runs the place so I have very good access to making sure no one comes into our practice room before you are meant to meet them."

"Isn't it a bad thing to tell me where the man who helped kidnap me works?" Marinette mentioned the thing Tikki had let slip through her stream of words.

"Oh," Tikki's mouth was a very small o, "I guess I shouldn't have. But, hey, you won't tell at this point, not until we teach you the magic you need to control your Ladybug side. Honestly, if you slipped into Ladybug at school today, pencils might have started floating. So, the gym is called Miraculous, which is a magical pun. Stemming from Ladybug's main spell, Miraculous Ladybug. Funny, right? Cat boys love puns, I've learned time and time again."

Tikki was so loud, Marinette looked at the other passengers on the train car they had walked into. None of them seemed to be able to listen. Tikki continued to talk about Plagg and what was going on in their personal lives, but Marinette tuned her out. Her voice turned to white noise and she let the rattling of a moving train spread throughout her mind.

Tikki's cold ring hit her cheek, but left no mark. Blinking, Marinette looked around at frightened passengers. Being lightly slapped worked her out of the trance, but Tikki looked furious.

"What was that? Were you even in Ladybug form? Honestly, how are we going to control that power if you enjoy tormenting innocent people on a Metro train?" Tikki's voice got louder, but had started out extremely muted.

"What did I do? I was just focusing on the clacking of the train," Marinette thought she had done nothing.

"You, intolerant child, just made those clacking noises a lot louder than I could shout and terrified everyone, probably even the driver of this metal can." The explanation cut through her like a blade.

"I didn't mean to, I was just trying to focus on something very constant." She felt so horrible about it, and the train would probably now be called in for repairs and maintenance even though it was just her.

"Don't focus on anything so intensely until your magic is under control, okay?"

"Yeah, I won't. That probably explains why I couldn't listen to a teacher during a lesson and think at the same time today. Also probably why Alya complained that the same teacher got so much louder after I started actually paying attention in school," Marinette said before sighing.

"Don't worry, this is our stop here, and you will absolutely love our gym," Tikki smiled knowingly at the statement, but Marinette had not seen much of Paris since she came back.

The gym was not a typical gym where people go to workout and do their weekly classes of pilates and cycling. It was a boxing gym, in the center was a square platform with the familiar ring on the ground and ropes around the outside. There was a collection of punching bags, gear, and a variety of weight machines and some different styles of treadmills behind the ring, but the ring was most definitely the main attraction.

"I'm not going in that thing." Marinette said the first thing that came into her mind. Tikki walked in and went straight to the only person Marinette would have recognized. Plagg, pasty as ever, was standing there and explaining how to properly use a weight machine.

Tikki said her greetings with Marinette simmering in the background. If any person in this single gym knew what those two people had done to her and Chat for so long, they would never have come here in the first place.

"Come on, Mari. We have a specialized room for this today," Tikki grabbed her by the arm and dragged her through a door to the back of the gym. Inside it was dark and gray with black shapes indicating furniture. A few people sat in chairs and one of them was smoking a cigarette.

"Tikki, one-day-Tikki," the man with the cigarette calls from across the room. Marinette wondered if he meant her by "one-day-Tikki."

She was dragged through yet another door and into a bright room. She looked at the worn wooden floor and row of mirrors on one wall. There was a faded line of wooden poles piled up in the corner. Tikki sat down in the middle of the floor, in a painted white symbol.

A circle split in two, surrounded by a larger octagon that was split into five more sections, each section of the symbol had a different symbol in it. The white lines were clean, straight edged around the turns as if it had been painted with a stencil. Tikki simply sat on one side of the circle and Plagg came in shortly after to sit on the other side.

Marinette didn't know what to do, so she stood in the same place that she had stopped at. Tikki told her to sit on her side of the circle, and so she did. Silently.

"It is an old dance studio that we added on to. I know you were wondering, and that's not what we should be focusing on. First, to separate Marinette and Ladybug, magically speaking, you need to do this spell on your first try. Then, I will hopefully get to teach you the other spell I was talking about earlier," Tikki moved over to make more room for Marinette. "Now, to make sure you can be using magic right now, lift those old poles over there."

"Sure," Ladybug came forth from the depths of Marinette's mind and Marinette went to those depths. Focusing on the poles, she thought the word _Lift_ and each one floated above them. She focused them back to where they initially stood.

"Now, the spell you need to survive the rest of your life is quite easy. Shout it, and I mean shout it. Spots on!" Tikki called out and a pink flash bathed the room. "That's what it will look like, and it will keep you from doing what you did in the Metro.

Ladybug repeated the words Tikki had told her and the room flashed the same hue once again. No trace of Marinette was there. Two minds were not fighting inside her head for the first time in nine years. Tikki was smiling happily, a bit translucent. The magic Ladybug performed had taken its toll on both of them, Tikki caught up in the past and Ladybug in the new red suit she was wearing.

"Where did this spandex come from?"

"It's called perks. Now this next spell can be quite tricky, but I'm sure you'll get it soon. It's called Miraculous Ladybug." Tikki's eyes were glazed thick with memories.


	5. Chapter 5

"Lucky Charm!" Ladybug shouted for the first time since the current Tikki had used it a few weeks before a young girl named Marinette could be her only new friend.

A red paintbrush covered in black polka dots fell from above Ladybug's raised fist and dropped into her other hand. There was white paint ready on the brush.

"You need to go home soon, so do the second half of the spell that fixes everything and then I'll give you a bit of food before your dinner tonight," Tikki said as Ladybug nodded.

"Miraculous Ladybug! How do I get out of this spandex?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. It's called Spots Off!" Tikki began to get up and walk around for a minute while Ladybug rolled her shoulders.

"Spots Off!" A flash of pink light filled the room and Marinette collapsed to the floor. She sighed as her stomach growled.

"That's it. Here's some high protein granola bars. Up you go, keep hold of me and we can get back to the park very soon. Yes, we still have over twenty minutes until you have to be home, and guess what? It only takes ten minutes to get you home!"

"Okay," Marinette mumbled as Tikki began to drag her towards the door. "I can walk, let me go," she slurred before Tikki let her go. She promptly started to fall yet again before Tikki grabbed onto her once more.

"Nope. Eat your granola bar. It's like you're drunk and tired. If you puke on me, you are most definitely buying me new designer shoes. Maybe a Chanel purse." Tikki said as she opened the packaging of one bar and stuffed multiple bars into her hands. After gaining back some strength that she had lost, Marinette unhooked herself from Tikki and rolled her neck.

"How long do I have until I have to be home?" Marinette asked Tikki as she grabbed onto her arm in order to disappear before they left Miraculous.

"Fifteen minutes, it takes ten to get you to the park and we originally had twenty if you hadn't acted so stupidly," Tikki snapped at her and set a brisk pace. She was annoyed, Marinette could find that out herself beut she didn't understand the _why._ Then again, she had never understood the why from Tikki's point of view. "Meet me at the park tomorrow night right after school."

"Why?"

"Do you think I deserve to tell you my plans? I haven't told you my plans for the past nine years."

In the metro, Marinette almost let go of Tikki before realizing what that would ensue. Panic among the people around her, a girl showing up out of nowhere. Although she stepped out of a dark van that sped off quickly from a park that nobody cared about her.

In the train car, she let herself loose the time to the clicking of the tracks without being afraid of her magic taking over the sound. Tikki was right that her magic would be mostly blocked off as Marinette now, which wasn't bad. Sitting in class with a pencil writing for her would be nice, but it might scare Alya, her only friend. Unless you counted Adrien and Nino, but Marinette thought she worried them because of her stumbling through words. It was just Adrien, really, that she was worried about. Adrien, whose golden head was nicer looking practically every period throughout the day.

He had a nice head, and cute eyes, she had decided. Sure they were very green, a pleasant reminder of her kitty. Chat always had to wear these weird contacts as he got older that made his eyes look like cat eyes. He hated them, but if he took them off Plagg would have done something worse to them that beatings. Plagg would have turned off the light. Plagg could have them separated and kept in different places, alone with or without lights. Being alone in the dark was the worst fear either of them had in that place.

Tikki let her off at the park and nobody noticed a girl magically appearing out of thin air. Tikki explained that anyone who saw her before she let go couldn't see her until they saw her a second time. She was just a passing face between strangers to anyone.

Dinner was an interesting thing that night. Marinette was less hungry than she thought, and had already surprised her parents by taking so much food. It was delicious, but those protein bars that she ate had filled her up much more than she thought. Tom ate her leftovers, and he finished them quickly.

Retreating to her room after some awkward conversations between both parents about her day and appetite, she laid down on the chaise that still had dust in it. She figured it would probably stay there forever, woven into the fibers of the cloth. She ran fingers over the seams of it, and studied the embroidery. It was simple stitching, back and forth in the pattern by a machine.

She stood up and looked at the dress form she had. There was plenty of supplies to start learning and she had the computer her parents got. She looked up how to make dresses and started her first project.

After an hour, Marinette looked at what she had accomplished. It was decent, something between a dress and something unknown. The torso was there, but the sleeves were all scrunched up around where she had tried to connect them to the dress. A spot in the middle of the torso had also been messed up and was curled in on itself. She wasn't sure how she did it, but attaching a brooch to the spot made it look intentional. Marinette didn't know what to do with the sleeves, so she bunched up the collar and made it a bit wider to look like it went with the dress theme. Pleated sleeves and a pleated collar made it seem like a thing, but the pleats and brooch made it too much.

Pretending like the way she cut out the fabric wasn't the issue, it was an okay attempt. Feeling happy with doing something, she put it into the corner and got ready for bed. Her homework was mostly finished, and she finished it up before climbing up to her bed.

Marinette was ready to fall asleep, but she stayed up thinking. It was hard not to contemplate the reasons behind Tikki's methods of teaching her. To take her where Plagg was, to let her know what the place was called. She focused on Miraculous, the gym on the outside and secret… lair on the inside? If Tikki wasn't lying about the mysterious Hawkmoth, then is the secret Miraculous still a secret lair? It looked more like a den where old friends that are the only ones able to see each other drink together.

She loved the studio, though. Everything about the studio was beautiful. The dust sitting in mid air, catching the light to make it glow silver. The wooden floor that was losing its polish to age, and the mirrors. The mirrors that lined up one wall that had her love from the moment she saw them. Beautiful things, mirrors were. Marinette liked the fancy ones as a child, and didn't see them in the cage. Now, she understood that mirrors showed who she really was.

Mirrors carried her to sleep peacefully, but it was a nightmare that woke her up. She was in a room only made of mirrors. She stared in wonder that each mirror she focused on would lead to a fantastical world of myths, while mirrors around her showed her reflection. The mirrors started to break behind her until she turned, then the mirrors she had turned away from would break until there was nothing left but her and the mirror below her. Cracks formed before she woke.

She laid there until her breathing leveled out and she could sit up without a panic attack. Terrified about what it meant, she got up and went to her computer. The clock read 4:28 in the morning, and she opened up a search in Google and searched myths about mirrors. Her windows were beginning to let light through before she closed the tab and went to get ready for school. She looked at herself in the mirror and noticed a hairline crack in the mirror.

She arrived at school while the bell rang. Slipping quietly into her seat late, Mlle Bustier let it pass because of how good Marinette knew how to listen. She was lecturing on the last chapter they had to read in _Les Miserables_ , just like the day before. The book started off quite boring, but Marinette was interested in what was going on in Fantine's life before Jean Valjean had swept into her life. There was an american movie that she heard had cut out all of Fantine's life before Cosette was in the innkeeper's care, so she didn't think she'd bother with the subtitles.

She listened to Mlle Bustier lecture endlessly, but really didn't listen to the words. Marinette did what she did on the train that day. She took background sounds and focused on them alone, in order to pick out different sounds. There was a vent above her somewhere that was making a different sound than the day before, an almost breath as it blew air out of the ceiling. She quieted her own breaths, trying to make out sounds barely there.

It was just a game to her. An old game, actually. Her mom would have her sit on the ground as a child, and listen for the quietest things she could hear and describe them to her mother and see if she could find them. Then, her mother would repeat the game back to her until one of them couldn't hear something that the other could. She played it with Chat when they were new friends and she had won most of the time.

She picked out the sounds hidden between the low whispers in the back of class and the paper rustling between page flips when students looked for a certain passage. She smiled at the sound that was just barely there, a sound she had picked out everywhere. When she was alone, eating dinner, in class, even on a busy street. A thrumming sound, beating like her heart. She had taken her pulse and measured the sound. It was faster than her heartbeat, and she had come to one conclusion. Her magic was a beast, beating with its power inside of her softer than a heartbeat, yet when she listened for it alone it could have been the only sound in the world.

She listened to the softer sound she had heard before in the classroom. I beat that was opposite her own magic. They beat in time, in turn. She didn't always hear it, but she had recognized it before. She had heard both of those beats before, in a dark room with a single lightbulb.

It was distant from the fact that the beat wasn't coming from her, but a person in the classroom. If he didn't sit near to her, she probably wouldn't have heard it. She had figured out who Chat Noir most likely was, but she wasn't going to tell him or Tikki. Or Plagg, since she most likely wouldn't see him where Tikki wanted to go tonight.

The bell rang, and she stood up with Alya, following her motions listlessly for a moment. Alya looked like she wanted to snap in front Marinette's face before Marinette smiled at her friend. She wondered why Alya liked her so much, the girl who spaced out in class and could barely keep time in order.

"Alya, remind me that I need to ask my mom for a watch, would you? With my luck, I'll forget before I even leave the next class," she said before sighing.

"Girl, with your luck, we'll be late for the next class!" Alya huffed before grabbing her arm and dragging her to Maths Class with Mme Mendeleiev.

They sat in class together, time dragging on yet again. Marinette listened to Mme Mendeleiev, and she took more notes than she expected to take. She stared at Adrien's golden head nod up and down while he looked up to listen and look down to write down his own notes. Then, she looked at the teacher again, studying her expressions when she took a pause and gave a pursed look at some students in the back.

"Nathanael, do you have any idea what the answer to this problem is?" Mme Mendeleiev was seeking a student who would have the right answer, but nobody wanted to raise their hands. He quietly answered her, with the correct answer. It was a setup problem, just how to take each variable and number out of the word problem and put it into the equation they had.

"Good, good," Mme Mendeleiev muttered while she turned to the board, "And these numbers all add up to… 273.8. That was the number we were looking for but if you would like a double check, take all of the numbers and cross check the original equation with the numbers we took from the original word problem."

She turned to the students and moved aside for students on the edge of the classroom to be able to see the full problem. Nobody seemed impressed, but it was a school classroom.

"So class, now that we have all the examples finished, the homework is page 165, numbers three through fifteen. You have the rest of class to work on that, about twenty minutes." Mme Mendeleiev went to her desk and started to check papers while the class started talking about the latest gossip.

"I heard that a girl was found, strung high from smoking, in her teacher's closet. It was across Paris of course, Daddy wouldn't let me go to such a disgusting school. There's rumors that she was even having an affair with the teacher, or she was at least doing more than _just smoking_ in that classroom," Chloé said loudly as the chatter grew. "I can't even believe it, it could make the news it was such a huge scandal. There was a scandal I read about that made super international news from America. Some nasty boys did things to their cooking class icing nastier than their personalities."

Marinette tried to tune out Chloé, really. It was just so hard with her annoying voice that didn't know what an inside volume was. She looked at the clock and pulled out a tangled pair of headphones to help her tune out the gossip table, surrounded by more and more people wanting to be included in Chloé's elite circle.

With only five minutes left in the school day, Marinette fretted about what Tikki would want tonight. She didn't have any homework that would take too long, so Tikki's mystery activity would probably be her homework. She didn't slip into her Ladybug persona anymore, it was helpful even if she had no access to magic without it.

She left the school and ran home, depositing her backpack in her room and telling her parents a white lie that she was hanging out with some friends. She said they decided on a place and she didn't recognize the name. It wasn't a total lie, but she still felt guilty.

Finally, Marinette went to the park to find Tikki. She looked around, but could only find a blonde boy with Plagg. She didn't want to talk to Plagg, and she figured it was Chat. Chat Noir and her had never seen each other's unpainted face, and they were threatened with beatings if they exchanged names. If they saw each other, Plagg would probably threaten to have Tikki snap both of their necks.

She quietly turned around and waited for Plagg to leave with the mystery Chat. Tikki never came, so she went home when her dinner would be about ready to eat.


End file.
